


démonter

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf), poppunkpadfoot (StormVandal)



Series: brinkverse [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Community: HPFT, First War with Voldemort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 15:47:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18210329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind, https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormVandal/pseuds/poppunkpadfoot
Summary: The third time the Healer came by to do rounds, she told Remus to go home and come back in the morning.He wanted to tell her, when she came back, that Sirius didn’t have any family besides him and James and Lily and Peter, and that he was only nineteen and he had almostdied, and that Remus couldn’t just leave him here all alone. But when she walked in, she had just smiled at him sadly, and flicked her eyes purposefully towards the clock, and Remus had swallowed his words.Written for HPFT's Great Collab, theme: back from the brink, challenge: internalized oppression





	démonter

**Author's Note:**

> Okay listen, we HAD to write a Wolfstar together, it really was not up for debate! We hope you enjoy :)

The third time the Healer came by to do rounds, she told Remus to go home and come back in the morning. He was grateful to her for even giving him that long — visiting hours had ended long ago, and on her first pass she’d informed him, not unkindly, that hospital policy was that only family were _really_ allowed after-hours in the emergency department; but she had looked at him, at the scorch marks on his shirt and the hasty bandage on his arm and the way that he was holding Sirius’s hand just a little too tightly, as if he were afraid Sirius would disappear — and she left the room without mentioning it again.

He wanted to tell her, when she came back, that Sirius didn’t have any family besides him and James and Lily and Peter, and that he was only nineteen and he had almost _died_ , that Severus Snape, of all people, had almost killed him in some park in bloody Leeds, in the middle of some stupid battle that the Order hadn’t even won properly, and that Remus couldn’t just leave him here all alone. But when she walked in, she had just smiled at him sadly, and flicked her eyes purposefully towards the clock, and Remus had swallowed his words. He wanted to tell her that while Sirius had a handful of family members, Remus had even fewer — his father was so often unreachable for work, his mother had died three years ago. It had been Sirius who fed him soup when he was too weak after a rough full moon to even lift a spoon; it had been Sirius who’d kissed him first, even though he was funny and brilliant and _beautiful_ and Remus was a scrawny, shabby _werewolf_.

He wanted to tell her that he loved him, but he could tell she already knew.

She still, on her third round, made him leave. 

At least she was apologetic about it — her shift was ending, and she didn’t want the next Healer rostered on to get cross with him. Even so, it didn’t make Remus feel better about abandoning Sirius. He had smoothed Sirius’s hair back, and kissed him on the forehead even though the Healer was watching, and tried very hard not to even let the thought cross his mind that Sirius might not wake up.

Their flat was exactly how they’d left it that afternoon. For some reason, this was shocking, enough so that Remus had to stop in the doorway to the kitchen and collect himself when he saw their unwashed dinner plates sitting beside the sink.

(“I’ll wash them when we get home,” Sirius had said with a cheeky smile, and pecked Remus on the cheek for good measure. “Promise.”)

He had aged ten years since then, it felt like, and yet the plates remained, food dried onto them. Logically, it was so late as to be considered early by some, and he should go to bed, and yet — and yet he found himself filling up the sink anyway. 

(Sirius would have done them by magic; Scourgify, if he was being lazy and he thought Remus would let him get away with it, or a charmed scrub brush. But Sirius was not here, Sirius was lying so so still in a hospital bed, and Remus needed something mindless to do with his hands.)

The ritual was soothing until it wasn’t — at first it was a relief to be able to turn off his brain and go through the familiar motions, until his brain realised it had the opportunity to replay the evening’s events over and over. The way Remus had shouted, just a split second too late; Snape’s voice yelling “Sectumsempra!”, carried all the way over across the battlefield to where Remus stood helplessly; the way Sirius had remained standing for a moment before crumpling, as if he had not yet caught up to reality; the moment he had looked back at Lily to find Sirius so pale that he’d thought he was dead already. Most incriminating was the moment after Sirius had fallen, when Remus had just frozen like a porlock in the wandlight, hardly believing what he was seeing and completely incapable of coming up with what he should do next.

If Lily hadn’t been there, Sirius would have died.

He was, he realized suddenly, scrubbing viciously at a plate that was already clean, and probably had been for several minutes. With a small splash, he let it drop into the sink, and he leant forward against the counter with a shuddering breath. Sirius would have _died_ , almost _did_ die (could still die, a little voice in his brain added unhelpfully, something could still go wrong), and he would have been completely helpless. Sirius would have bled to death in his arms. Or worse — Sirius would have bled to death not even being held, because Remus would be too useless to even move to comfort him. 

He hadn’t even succeeded in doing any real damage to Snape — obviously Unforgiveables were out of the question, but a terrifying part of him had wanted to, had wanted to kill him or at least use his own Dark magic against him — without a wand arm he would have a much harder time trying to murder Sirius a second time. And yet Remus had restrained himself to using hexes that were, ultimately, harmless, if painful in the moment. It was almost ironic, really; he was so afraid that one day he’d snap and prove everyone right, prove his own worst fears right, do something horrifically violent and not even bat an eye because werewolves, after all, were vicious, werewolves were monsters, _he_ was a monster — that he couldn’t even fight Death Eaters properly, even though they wanted him and all his loved ones dead, even though they revelled in violence far beyond anything that Remus thought himself capable of.

He soon ran out of things to wash and sighed as he unplugged the sink, resigning himself to lying in bed and staring at the ceiling while he remained in ignorance of whether Sirius was alive or dead. When he was finally allowed to sit by him, Sirius had looked a little better than in the park, the moonlight washing out his already deathly pale skin to make it seem like the worst had happened; lying in a hospital bed, he at least looked alive. 

But he had still been so still, his breathing shallow, and Remus had waited anxiously for him to take his next breath every time. And now Remus was lying in their bed alone and resolved to stay awake so he could at least return to St Mungo’s as soon as visiting hours re-opened.

But because all he seemed able to do lately was fail Sirius, he fell asleep not five minutes after his head hit the pillow.


End file.
